A Russian-owned superyacht seized by the United States has arrived in the Hawaiian capital of Honolulu flying an American flag.
The US last week won a legal battle in Fiji to impound the $US325 million ($A469 million) vessel and immediately sailed it to Hawaii.
The FBI has linked the superyacht, named Amadea, to Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov.Â
The US said Kerimov secretly bought the Cayman Islands-flagged vessel last year through various shell companies.
The ship became a target of Task Force KleptoCapture, launched in March to seize the assets of Russian oligarchs and put pressure on Russia to end their war in Ukraine.
The FBI said a search warrant in Fiji turned up emails showing Kerimov’s children were aboard the ship this year and the crew used code names to identify them – G0 for Kerimov, G1 for his wife, G2 for his daughter and so on.
The 106-metre vessel, about the length of a football field, features a live lobster tank, a hand-painted piano, a swimming pool and a large helipad.
Lawyer Feizal Haniff, who represented Millemarin Investments, the owner on paper, had argued the yacht belonged to another wealthy Russian who, unlike Kerimov, does not face sanctions.
By Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu
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